---------------------------------------------------------- FREE Subscribe/UNsubscribe Indonesia Daily News Online go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 Free Email @KotakPos.com visit: http://my.kotakpos.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------- Precedence: bulk >From : FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: TEN DAYS TO MAYBE/MAYBE NOT, THE DEADLIEST GAMBLE IN HISTORY -YOU CAN HELP! Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 4:43 AM PLEASE READ & DO WHAT YOU CAN TO HELP, PASS ON, etc. If you need to shorten or customise this, just do so. ------------------------------------------- PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU CAN! The Most Important issue for the next 10 days: You can help! The next ten days will see what may or may not turn out to have been the deadliest gamble in history as 5,600 nuclear warheads on 1200 missiles with gyros spinning ready to be launched in minutes experience the Y2K rollover. A sufficiently serious misunderstanding will mean, basically, the end of the world. Many of you are already working on a variety of environmental, antinuclear, and weapons issues. You may react to this by saying 'I'm already doing my bit for the planet'. You may even be working on something that is much more important in the long run. This will only occupy your attention for the next 10 (5 really,) days. But it is possibly the single most important short term issue we could possibly face. What you do over the next 7 days or so could possibly affect whether we will be around to campaign on anything else. But if there turns out to have been no problem what you do will still be very helpful. At the end of the next 10 days, the largest, oldest, most complex, most deeply interconnected, and previously least Y2K-compliant computer command and control systems in the world will experience Y2K. These are of course, the systems that perform command, control, communications, and monitoring for nuclear weapons systems. There are some 2,000 warheads in 500 land-based minuteman ICBMs in the US, and some 3,600 warheads in 700 land- based ICBMs in Russia, on permanent 24 hour hairtrigger alert, with gyros spinning ready for launch at a moments notice. That doesn't count warheads in SLBMs or bombers. The launch of all 5,600 warheads could end all human life, would certainly end civilisation, and would do irreparable and very profound damage to the entire web of life on earth. The Pentagon has spent over $3.6 billion and it says it is totally confident its systems will cope. The Russians say their control systems for their nuclear weapons do not utilise the date and will cope. Privately however, US officers worry about blank screens, false data, and communications blackouts. The Canberra Commission reccommended as far back as 1996 that as a first step toward nuclear abolition, nuclear weapons be taken off hairtrigger alert. The Tokyo Forum has also called for this to be done. Two UN resolutions passed this year and another two passed this year have called for de-alerting. Two resolutions of the Australian Senate and a resolution passed unanimously by the European Parliament have called for nuclear weapons to be taken off alert over the Y2K rollover. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin and their Secretaries of Defence have been the recipients of a very large number of letters from NGOs all round the world calling for nuclear weapons to be taken off alert. So far there is no indication that they will do this. Instead, Yeltsin has threatened the US, saying they should remember that Russia has a large nuclear arsenal and has deployed ten of the latest Topol-M missiles on full alert. Nonetheless, there are indications that the campaign has been noticed. And what will actually happen on the night of the rollover has implications that are about as ultimate as they could be. Hopefully nothing at all will happen. If nothing happens we will still be here. However, what will determine the future of us all and of all life is exactly how a possible false alert will be dealt with. That is why it is essential for the Pentagon and the Kremlin to hear our voices over the next 11 days. *That is why I am asking everybody I can to place the Y2K de-alert campaign at the top of their priority lists for the next 10 (or more realistically the next 7) days.* There are lots of campaigns that are important. There are lots of campaigns that have much more profound long term implications than this one. But we have to get through the Dec 31/Jan 1 rollover at the very least. Its all a bit pointless if we accidentally make the planet uninhabitable by a simple and utterly mindless computer glitch. And of course it has been pointed out to me that there may be Y2K-related glitches in command and control systems for months or even years afterwards. The danger from all of this would disappear almost completely of course if the 5.600 weapons now on 24 hour hairtrigger alert in the US and Russia (land - based ICBMs only) were taken off alert. With luck all this will prove to have been without foundation. But even without Y2K, there have been a series of hair-raising near-misses. What we are dealing with is a classic 'high-consequence, low-probability' event. But there is nothing to lose. A massive manifestation of global concern, focused on the Kremlin and the Pentagon is the best shot we have at giving the world the best chance of getting through the new year. And whatever happens on 31/12, this campaign puts 'de-alerting' on the map as an all-round good idea. And with luck nothing whatsoever will happen, and we'll all be wrong - till the next hair-raising near miss. I am asking everyone to consider whether the possible risk and the possible stakes over the rollover, even if the risk turns out to be very small indeed, don't warrant your concerted effort for at least the next week, so that we are sure we will be around for those high- priority, long - term, deeper implication, campaigns. Think about it. But not for too long. There are only 11 days and you need to act as soon as possible. Tell US Defence Secretary Cohen, President Clinton, and the Kremlin that we do not need to have 5,600 warheads on 24 hour a day ready-to launch status. Tell them we want to know every time there is a false alarm or a near miss. Ask them to extend the operational period of the joint Y2K strategic stability centre at least through May, and preferably indefinitely. The fax number of US Defence Secretary William Cohen is +1-703-695-1149 Bill Clinton's fax is +1-202-456-2461 The Kremlin fax is +7-095-205-4330 The cost of a single page A4 fax to Russia, as counted on a telephone bill from Australia is $1.00-$1.50, but public fax agencies charge an arm and a leg just to dial the number. You can fax for free on http://www.fax4free.com (But the best fax is HANDWRITTEN). *If you are an organisation* and want to sign a large sign-on letter, please sign the letter to Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton that is being periodicaly faxed to them on http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd/nuclear/bbletter.html Sample letters to Cohen/Clinton and to Russian Defence Minister Sergeyev are below. Please customise and abbreviate. And have fun while saving the planet from (possibly) the apocalypse! I wish us all luck, and that nothing happens. 1) SAMPLE LETTER TO COHEN/CLINTON (Please customise and shorten) TO: WILLIAM COHEN, US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE, +1-703-695-1149, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, US, +1-202-456-2461, +1-202-456-2883. Dear President Clinton and Secretary for Defence Cohen, I am writing to urge your administration to take US nuclear forces off 'hairtrigger alert' even if only during the Y2K rollover period, to ask that any false alarms or 'near misses' over the Y2K rollover and at any other time be reported publicly, and to ask that the Y2K strategic stability centre's operations be extended preferably indefinitely but at least till May. There is little time to act, and an immediate decision to place nuclear weapons in a status in which immediate launch is impossible is essential to ensure global stability. As you will be aware, the European Parliament recently voted to ask you and President Yeltsin to do as the UK has already done, and de-alert nuclear weapons. De-alerting of nuclear forces was strongly recommended by the Canberra Commission in 1996 and then by the Tokyo Forum, as a way to develop strategic stability and build trust between the US and Russia. It has also been incorporated into last year's and this years text of the New Agenda Resolution in the UN General Assembly. It has also been reccommended by a resolution specifically on the subject passed by last years General Assembly and by this years First Committee on Reduction of Nuclear Dangers. In addition it has been the subject of two resolutions passed by the Australian Senate on 12 August and 20 September, and finally it has been clearly requested by the European Parliament. It is also the subject of congressional resolution H.Con Res177 put by Edward Markey, and most recently, the City of Berkeley has asked for it. De-Alerting and the establishment of the Y2K strategic stability centre are not in competition with each other. Indeed, we urge strongly that the strategic stability centres operations be extended indefinitely. Reductions in the number of weapons, the establishment of shared early warning centers and de-alerting are all vital to the reduction of tension and the establishment of strategic stability. This is particularly the case in view of the uncertainties posed by the millennium date change (Y2K). As you are well aware, the largest and oldest computer system complexes in the world are those that control nuclear weapons systems. The very nature of the Y2K problem makes it impossible to be sure everything has been fixed until well into the new year. Russia has, until recently, made little effort to even acknowledge the Y2K problem, let alone fix it. It is therefore quite possible that Russian computerized control systems are not Y2K compliant and that they will experience widespread failures during the Y2K rollover period. Even more disquieting is the fact that that the Russians have constructed the system known as 'Perimeter', or the 'dead hand'. This system seems to include additional ways in which Y2K failure might lead to an accidental launch. The establishment of a Y2K strategic stability center in Colorado is certainly an advantageous move and an absolutely essential one, but it does not entirely remove the danger of an accidental launch of nuclear weapons. The fact that the Center is scheduled, as far as we the public are aware, to come into operation only on December 27th, four days prior to the rollover, is far from reassuring. A four day delay will render it useless. Similarly, the center itself will depend on the availability of ultra-reliable hotlines between it and Moscow. The Y2K vulnerabilities recently discovered in six of the seven hotlines on which US/Russian communications depends, are also cause for deep concern. If nuclear weapons are removed from a status in which they can be launched within minutes, and placed in one which would require at least days to launch, the risk of an accidental missile launch induced by Y2K or other errors in command and control systems will be virtually eliminated. This has already been done by the UK, which has moved the 'notice to fire' for its missile forces from minutes to days. The United States is making a serious error in failing to consider de-alerting. Failure to take nuclear forces off hairtrigger alert over the Y2K 'rollover' period is an error that has the potential of causing unthinkable consequences. The probability of this may be low, but it will never be zero as long as nuclear forces remain on hair-trigger alert. This will continue to be so after the immmediate Y2K 'rollover' period. In a previous administration, President Bush took strategic bomber forces off alert. We urge you to do this with all US nuclear forces. (SIGNED) etc. 2) SAMPLE LETTER TO YELTSIN/DEFENCE MINISTER SERGEYEV (Please customise and shorten) PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, IGOR SERGEYEV, RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTER, +7-095-205-4330, Dear Defence Minister Sergeyev and President Yeltsin, I am writing to convey my deep concern that Y2K-related computer failures in the command and control systems for nuclear weapons may lead to an accidental nuclear war. I am aware that both Russia and the US have taken this problem seriously enough to establish a joint strategic stability center in Colorado. However, I am very much concerned that this facility will come into operation only by 27th December 1999, so that a delay of just four days will make it useless. This facility is however, essential to the security of the world, and should continue to operate indefinitely. I am also very much concerned that Y2K problems have been found recently in six out of seven of the 'hotlines' that would be used if a crisis of any sort arose over the Y2K rollover period. I am aware that there have been a number of occasions when either the US or Russia have mistakenly believed that the other nation was in the process of launching a nuclear attack. With 3,600 Russian warheads on 700 missiles and 2,000 US warheads on 500 missiles, with each side capable to launch within roughly 20 minutes, this must never be allowed to happen, either over the Y2K 'rollover', or at any other time. The use of 5,600 warheads would certainly mean the end of what we call civilization, would likely mean the end of the human race and could possibly mean the end of all life. I therefore urge both you and the United States, to place all your nuclear forces in a status in which at least days not minutes, would be required to launch. The United Kingdom has, I understand, already done this. The European Parliament has recently called on both the US and Russia to de-alert nuclear weapons and to place them in a state similar to that in which the UK has placed its weapons. De-alerting of nuclear forces was strongly recommended by the Canberra Commission in 1996 and then by the Tokyo Forum, as a way to develop strategic stability and build trust between the US and Russia. It has also been incorporated into last year's and this years text of the New Agenda Resolution in the UN General Assembly. It has also been recommended by a resolution specifically on the subject passed by last years General Assembly and by this years First Committee on Reduction of Nuclear Dangers. In addition it has been the subject of two resolutions passed by the Australian Senate on 12 August and 20 September, and finally it has been clearly requested by the European Parliament. It is also the subject of congressional resolution H.Con Res177 put by Edward Markey, and most recently, the City of Berkeley has asked for it. In this context I am particularly concerned that statements have been made in which the threat of nuclear weapons has been raised, and that new missiles have been deployed and placed on alert status. As what is at stake is potentially the survival of the entire planet, no considerations, even the highest considerations of national security, can take priority. The immediate stakes are so high and the potential for global catastrophe is so great, that de-alerting of nuclear forces in the face of the Y2K computer problem and the long-term possibility of false alerts must take precedence over all other considerations of political and national security. (Signed) etc. John Hallam Friends of the Earth Sydney, 17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042 Fax (61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd/nuclear/bbletter.html --- To join, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You are currently subscribed to active-list as: [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] To unsubscribe, forward this message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] URG is proudly hosted by Virtual Artists Pty Ltd ---------- SiaR WEBSITE: http://apchr.murdoch.edu.au/minihub/siarlist/maillist.html ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 24 Dec 1999 jam 01:59:46 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
